The terrible warning of a Holocaust survivor

At my dinner table on Friday night, a holocaust survivor admits that she is trying to persuade her son to take his family out of Europe to America, Canada, Australia, Canada, Australia, Israel…’They say they can’t leave me, but I tell them: “Go, get out. My parents left my grandparents behind in Berlin and brought me to safety in England. Now I want you to leave so that my grandchildren will be safe.”’ There is an unbearable desperation in her plea. But she has a point.

As tens of thousands of demonstrators march through the streets of Europe, the chants are modified but the message remains substantially intact: ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas — Jews to the Gas’. Or, more simply: ‘Death to the Jews’. Many European Jews, even well-established, affluent Jews, have been checking the suitcase they keep packed under the bed. They have been here before and many are (albeit reluctantly) reading the writing on the wall.

To some extent I thought I was inured. I grew up in postwar apartheid South Africa where a subtle undercurrent of anti-Semitism was a fact of everyday life. So while I was disturbed by manifestations of mob anti-Semitism, I was also less vulnerable to shock. That’s just how people are. Living in genteel, leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb provides an additional layer of protection from such crass outbursts.

But my sanguine state ends abruptly when I am out walking on Saturday. A hundred yards from my front door, I encounter the slogan, freshly painted in yellow, across the pavement: ‘Kill the Filthy Jews’. I am shocked. And shocked that I am shocked. The message is too close for comfort. The leafy gentility is, after all, an illusion.

Those who study these matters tell me that the current convulsion of anti-Semitism is the worst in a generation. They also say that there is a direct, causal link with the Israeli military operation against Hamas in Gaza. Once upon a time, anti-Israel protesters insisted they were motivated by political animus against Zionism rather than racial prejudice against Jews. The Hamas Charter, which sets out of the guiding principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement — xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic — removes the distinction.

Last week Basim Naim, the Hamas Minister of Health in Gaza, sought to capitalise on the wave of European support for his movement and to confer some respectability on Hamas among those who lean to the left. Writing in the Guardian, he decried the ‘continuing attempt to discredit and demonise Hamas’. Boldly, he asserted: ‘Our struggle is not against the Jewish people, but against oppression and occupation. This is not a religious war. We have no quarrel with the Jewish people’.

Mr Naim’s disingenuous depiction of Hamas as a friend of the Jews took my sense of credulity to a place that is accessible only to my psychiatrist. The ideology contained in the Hamas Charter (which was adopted in 1987, not 1887), leaves no room for interpretation. ‘Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave,’ it declares. Every Muslim is enjoined to confront the enemy in the land of the Muslims: ‘a woman must fight the enemy even without her husband’s authorisation, and a slave without his master’s permission… In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. We must…join the ranks of the Jihad fighters’.

Article Seven of the Charter provides the religious justification: ‘The Prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: “The [end of days] will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!’”’

Then the Hamas Charter morphs into the oldest hatred: primitive, European anti-Semitism. Jews, says the Charter, have accumulated ‘huge and influential wealth’ which they use to implement their ‘dream’. It has allowed them to take over the world media and to foment revolutions (the French and Communist revolutions receive special mention) in order to ‘fulfil their interests and pick the fruit’. The Jews, it says, used their influence to start both world wars and they used their money to ‘establish clandestine organisations which are spreading around the world to destroy societies and promote Zionist interests’. Among these ‘destructive spying organisations’, the Hamas Charter makes special mention of the Freemasons, Rotary clubs, Lions clubs and B’nai B’rith.

This psychopathic babble is unpleasant stuff, but, like it or not, that is the formally enshrined ideological platform and considered worldview of Hamas. It should be dismissed with contempt, but its message resonates in important Middle East capitals, from Tehran to Damascus and Doha. Sadly, it has found an echo on the streets of Europe, too.

All this raises some important questions. What part of the Hamas message inspires tens of thousands from the left, right and centre of the political spectrum to take to the streets of Europe with their chants of support for Hamas and hatred of Jews? What part of that noxious Hamas ideology is so compelling that it has led some into violent confrontation with the police? And where are those protestors when Muslims are killed in other conflicts, from Afghanistan and Chechnya to Darfur and the Philippines?

Hamas has provided the touchpaper for a Thirties-style outburst in Europe. Anti-Semitism is rampant. Synagogues are burned and Jewish cemeteries are desecrated, while individual Jews are met with gratuitous verbal and, at times, physical abuse in the street.

In Britain, a cross-party group of MPs is moved to speak of their ‘horror’ as ‘a wave of anti-Semitic incidents has affected the Jewish community’. There is, they note, a ‘discernible sense of anxiety and vulnerability’ among British Jews.

In Germany, anti-Semitic violence directed at Jewish institutions is reported to be spreading nationwide after a police officer guarding a synagogue in Berlin’s Mitte district, the pre-war centre of Jewish life, was attacked with an iron bar.

In Italy, the Flaica-Uniti-Cub trade union, which represents workers in shops and malls, calls for a boycott of businesses with Jewish associations, directing shoppers to focus particularly on clothing stores, many of which, the union pointed out, are traditionally owned by Italian Jews. And in Denmark — Denmark! — schools with large numbers of Muslim pupils are refusing to enrol Jews because, they say, their security cannot be assured.

There can be no doubt that, for many, Israel-hatred is a cover for Jew-hatred. There can also be no doubt that this figleaf is becoming redundant. The contagion has passed through the membrane and the post-Holocaust taboo against open expressions of anti-Semitism is slipping away.

The Hamas Health Minister might have been stretching the truth when he said ‘we have no quarrel with the Jewish people’. Sadly, though, he was not telling fibs when he said he and his comrades ‘welcome and appreciate the stand taken by leading Jewish figures in Britain and around the world against Israel’s aggression against Gaza and for the rights of our people’.

I am hoping that my psychiatrist will be able to explain why so many Jews have been propelled into the arms of those who seek their destruction. Precisely what part of the Hamas Charter are they defending?

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated January 24, 2009

Kindle

More Spectator for less. Subscribe and receive 12 issues delivered for just £12, with full web and app access. Join us now.

Gary O

Is anybody still wondering how ordinary Germans brought themselves in their millions to love the Nazis and managed to stand by when the Jews walked into the gas chambers? Is anybody still wondering how, an otherwise sane and intelligent Germans, unflinchingly gave the Nazi salute and shouted “Heil Hitler”?Well, look no further than them school teachers, professors and ordinary housewives carrying that modern equivalent of the Nazi salute: those placards proclaiming, “we are Hamas” or “we are Hezbolla”.Anti-Semitism is now fashionable once again (for it never quite died from the European Christian conscience), only now it has the power of the media and Islam behind it.

Ephraim Ravid

Policians are cowards,have short memories and no vision. When they woke up on September one 1937 it was too late. 50M people died as a result of their cowardice. 70 years later we are there again. Only now more than 50M people will die. Hitler, the Almeighty be blessed, had no nuclear bombs. Iran will have one if the policy of appeasement prevails. In 1937 Europe woke up to the rumble of German tanks and drone of bombers over Poland. This time it will wake up (if at all) to the shock wave of an Iranian nuke.

Kacy

As a Jew it hurts me deeply when I see the re-emergence of anti-semitism in Europe. But honestly, it hurts as much to see what Israel is doing in Gaza. Maybe more, because I can clearly see that one is a result of the other.

Chris

You might want to read the penultimate paragraph of the article, Kacey, and consider the extent to which the phrase ‘useful idiot’ applies to you.

Edward

It’s not anti-Semitism you stupid, stupid people – it’s anti-Zionism. It is, believe it or not, possible to hate the sin and love the sinner. What makes me sick are apologists for Israeli foreign policy who think they can cover up the plank in their eyes by referring to the mote in those who wish to curtail Israel’s murderous ethnic cleansing.

Anne Klausner

So Edward, I guess you will be taking issue with the Hamas minister who warned that “Jewish children worldwide are targets” as a result of Israel’s actions. Since you’re so obviously NOT antisemitic. You WILL take this up with him. Won’t you?

And when Mr. Davies sees “Kill filthy Jews” scrawled in the street – I trust you will be protesting to the Hamas regime as well as to your anti-Semitic, er, I mean your anti-Zionist friends who wrote such eloquent please.

/crickets…

Edward

So Anne, does your memory extend to recalling the specific events that led to the “”Jewish children worldwide are targets” remark? Can you join the dots between Israel’s utterly disgusting behaviour in Gaza and the reaction of people being treated in this way? Did you read Avi Shlaim’s article in The Guardian recently, or is he a closet anti-Semite too?

/crickets yourself

Steve Little

Amazing article. As though the outrage and the demonstrations had nothing to do with the revulsion after seeing livid pictures such as white phosphorous cluster bombs raining down on innocent people who have had nowhere to hide.

Bickers

Hamas and Hamas alone are responsible for the recent Israeli onslaught. Was it disproportionate – yes. Did it need to be – yes. Why, because Hamas and the idiots that elected them have to realise that if you keep firing rockets into a sovereign country (recognised by the UN) you have to expect a response.

Hamas now have no choice but to stop what they’ve been doing – remember Israel did pull back from Gaza as a stage in the painfully slow peace process – and their thanks for doing this was Hamas rockets.

Mark

My parents are Holocaust survivors. To see that this type of ignorance persists just shows me how corrupt the leftist media and socialist Europe assists to keep these mongrels propoganda going. Charles Martel stopped them 1000 years ago. We need another strong figure to stop them again

Sotonoho Gaii

European Jews can feel solace in the knowledge that the remaining non-Muslim Europeans will flee abroad just behind them. A caveat, however: European Jews will be welcome in America, but not other Europeans and their pernicious ideologies (socialism, communism, fascism, anti-Semitism, nihilism, etc.).

WR Jonas

What an interesting reaction. No one assumes that this antisemitism can be resisted or Jews cannot fight back. The first reaction is to flee. I guess we live in times where people have been convinced that they are helpless. They are convinced that they are merely victims. Where does that assumption spring from? Where is the outrage in Great Britain ?

Emil

All Jews should leave Europe as quickly as possible. The UK today is more anti-Jewish than at any time in its modern history.

Mike – Fargo, ND USA

Don’t bother coming to the States. 75% of Jews voted for B. Hussein Obama and the Democrats that Fault Israel for defending herself.

Hugh B

Dear Jewish friends. Consider the USA. You will find welcoming communities in almost every corner of the country and Gentiles who respect and admire the accomplishments and contributions of their Jewish friends.If Europe wishes to trade muslims for Jews…well- it’s their loss!One Irishman from the Bronx who has not forgotten.

Augustus

I grew up in leafy Belsize Park, Hampstead, after the war. Next door to us lived Dr and Mrs Dukes who had escaped from Vienna just in time to make London their home. While the good doctor worked in a hospital, I often went shopping with Mrs Dukes. she was a lovely lady and even taught me to play the piano. Never was there a sign of animosity towards her, only love and respect. You should have seen her hold sway at the local Polish delicatessan. Things were different then, people respected the Jews for their sufferings, and for the promise of a new beginning for them. Why should the ignorant thugs born today destroy all of that? Weren’t past sufferings enough to bear? What drives the appeasers of Islam, and why are politicians and councillors so under their spell?

Lou Driever

I live in the States. After the election my friends and I started talking about where we might go (after all, the Democrats can always go to Canada/France/etc). The consensus was we’d move to Israel. They seem to be the last country left where the citizens have a sense of personal responsiblity for their national destiny. Since I’m NOT Jewish (nor a conservative Christian to head off that accusation), it’ll be tough to get in – especially as I anticipate I clearly won’t be alone. At least I’ll be in good company!

Sara123

If I were Jewish or Christian, I would leave Europe now. The future of Europe is clear and it hates Jews and Christians.

Eric Greer

Credit to Mr. Davis: this is one of the few (only?) times that I have seen a specific reference to the Hamas “Covenant” in a a MSM monograph- and quotations therefrom. Hamas is indeed a Jew-hating, theologically-triumphalist, Islamist organization, which advocates terror to destroy Israel. The group’s constitution confirms this categorically.

Bu on U

Edward, answer the question. The one that was asked. The one about Jewish children being legitimate and deliberate targets.

Martin Pooley

I wonder how Hamas and their apologists would react if the Israeli government, as rulers of not only their own country but also as de facto rulers of land regarded as “Palestinian”, that they wanted a 21st century, rainbow nation, one state solution? “Call it what you like, but we we recognise that Jewish and Palestinian people have an equal claim to this Holy Land; and, yes, let’s call it that, The Holy Land!”Would that pull the anti-semitic rug from underneath Hamas and their fellow travellers and bring an end to “the world’s oldest hatred?” I think not. It would take generations, not just that one act, to eradicate that canker.And, Lou, I believe that, if pushed, a sense of personal responsibility for our own destiny would become apparent in even us diffident Brits. It has in the past.

Bill

Davis’s dinner companion was a “holocaust survivor”? Come again. That’s like being a car crash survivor by driving safely from point A to point B.But I guess it’s symptomatic of the way the history of the Second World War is being told. Just like the American Civil War has become “the war to free the slaves”, WW2 will, at some future point, become “the war to free the Jews” . . . with possibly a jail sentence for anyone who dares to say otherwise.

Edward

@Bu on u – what exactly was the original question? Anne’s comment was a tad confused. Am I supposed to make an appointment with someone to complain about something?

Since Israel saw fit to kill over 400 Palestinian children in the past month, they can hardly complain of the harvest they have sown.

You people. You’re so busy defending the indefensible, you can’t see the F-16 for the Qassam, or the Apache Gunship helicopter for the AK47.

Paul

Bill, I would suggest the person in question could be a “Holocaust Survivor” if she’d been in the camps, or hidden, Anne Frank like, in Nazi occupied Europe. I don’t like the idea that any Jew living in the first half of the 1940′s being defined as a “holocaust survivor” as someone sitting in New York was never under any real threat and never even numbered at the Wansee Conference. I think this person was a child refugee in 1938/39 from Germany from the sound of the article. That would make it a question of definition, as she would in that case escaped as the building was about to go up in flames as opposed to being found amongst the embers.

The central point, however, is that we have had murderous bombings right here from Muslims, without there being huge anti-Muslim demonstrations, cries that all Muslims across the world should be subject to slaughter in vengeance, and widespread condemnation (in advance by the way) of any anti-Islamic slogans. Why are people so much more “enthused” by violence that occurs in the eastern end of the Mediterranean than in the heart of London? Why adopt, or excuse, the rantings and anger of people living in Gaza but be so ready to condemn any of their neighbours for voicing anti-Muslim rants over the latest bombing by Islamic extremists. I don’t see why many on the left seem to think that Muslims need to be so protected, but that Jews are apparently fair game.

Yehudit from Jerusalem

For the past years the children of Sderot have been targeted by rockets. I didn’t hear a word of protest. The Israel Defense Force is made up of our sons, husbands, and brothers, yes there might be the occasional rotten apple, but basically they are decent and more important God fearing people. No we didn’t target the children, the women, the weak and the helpless. Hamas put them in the line of fire. The new anti semitism, isn’t that new, it is a hang over from the medieval days, when no we didn’t poison the wells, and no we don’t use the blood of Christian babies to bake with. In the old days, anti semitism was fostered by the Church hierarchy, who knew they were telling lies, but had their own agenda. Nowadays, it is fostered by the media, notably the BBC World Service, who also have their own agenda. Should the British Jews be packing their bags – as I tell my kids – yes, indeed they should!

mike cato

I has often been suggested that the European Arabs are being used as shock troops for Leftist, Ultra-Leftist and Anarchist movements. I think there is more that a little truth in this. I don’t blame it all on anti-semitism.

Ian G

Gary O, Anti-Semitism is NOT part of the European Christian conscience. It is , in its earliest manifestations, Pagan in origin. The two most famous instances are in Egypt (leading to the Exodus and Passover) and in Persia (leading to a fight-back and Purim). With the ‘conversion’ of the Emperor Constantine Paganism corrupted a Christianity that had already become severed from its Jewish roots. The Jews do hold some responsibility for that break, but their histories omit the fact. This does not exonerate those Christians who embraced anti-semitism. In fact, it condemns them as unbelievers and neo-pagans. After all, it was Jesus Himself Who said,’Salvation is of(from) the Jews’.

Since the ascendance of theological modernism and liberalism, the Protestant denominations have gone the way of the Catholics and Orthodox and reverted to pagan anti-semitism. The growth of secularism and the New Age has led to the masses reverting to a heathen state. The resulting anti-semitism is unsurprising.

The same organisations that have been virulently biased against Israel are also biased against Christianity. It’s quite simple really. The World hates God and anyone who anything to do with Him. Islam hates Jews and Christians because they refuse to recognise Mohammed as a prophet and Allah as God. Everything else is self-justifying flummery.

John

Ok, Edward, what’s your source of information for your assertion that 400 Palestinian children died during the IDF’s recent operations in Gaza? Hamas?

But let’s assume you’re right and that all these kids did die — Hamas was using children as human shields, after all. Hasn’t Hamas been busy like bees indoctrinating Palestinian children day in day out that dying as martyrs while fighting the “Zionists” is an honor and a duty? They certainly don’t have compunctions about sending youngsters on suicide missions. What’s your take on that, my friend?

Second: you argue that the death of Palestinian children during the IDF’s operations legitimizes Hamas’s claims (and no doubt efforts soon) to kill Jewish children anywhere in the world. It’s an eye-for-an-eye world, isn’t, Edward. So no doubt you’ll also agree that the murder of a Jewish children anywhere will likewise legitimize the reciprocal murder of an Arab child anywhere as well.

What a fine fellow you are, my friend. Incidentally, I don’t see you crying crocodile tears over the thousands upon thousands of children murdered recently by Muslim “insurgents” in “trouble spots” from southern Thailand to the Sudan to Iraq to Afghanistan etc.

How’s that?

Ben Ami

We have passed the point of argument and discussion. There is no longer any value in presenting mainstream Jewish views, or Israeli views on the Guardian’s CiF, when that journal carries eight separate anti-Israel articles in a single day (Jan 23, 2008).

The lines are being drawn in the sand as we speak, and Europe is moving back in time. Why did we ever think it wouldn’t? Why did we ever believe that centuries of violent antisemitsm could be erased in a single generation?

Antisemitism is a sickness that exists in the very bones of European society, and like in Germany of the 1930s, it is being embraced by the universities and the arts as much as by the right-wing radicals.

If anyone remembers what Al Pacino said should be done to the preparatory school in his monologue at the end of the movie “Scent of a Woman”, …that’s what should be done to the London School of Economics.

C Capps

Hamas is just another arm of Islam. It will be used if left unchecked to exterminate the Jews, Christians and any other non-believing group…if checked or if Hamas loses credibility it will repackage itself…reseed and keep on going. It’s too bad the public doesn’t choose to recognize the truth. They will share in the misery that is coming.

Susan McNabe

Fly on over to Chicago- I am not Jewish but anyone who tries to hurt jewish here will have to get past me first (and good luck trying)!

Erik

@ Ephraim Ravid: Hmmm. 1937?

amanda goldman

So it’s not just me? I never thought I’d say I feel uncomfortable in this country. My father came from Calcutta declaring this was a wonderful country admiring the people and the ‘green grass’. He died shortly after 9/11 and I am so pleased he is not alive now to experience what I am experiencing. I feel uncomfortable with my non-jewish friends. I even feel uncomfortable with my dear (non jewish) sister-in-law who’s anger at Israel is enormous and am I being paranoid but I feel this anger as if it were directed to me personally. I’m not angry at Israel. I’m not stupid. I wait to hear what the truth is and then I also understand that when you are threatened with extinction there are few choices. You can run, you can attack, or you can say it will be alright if we just lie low and wait. Only now, we know, the last is not an option anymore. The world has not evolved to the point that discussion with my enemy is possible. If the Jews disappear then there will be another group who will receive the full onslaught of hatred that the Jews have born over the centuries, have no doubt, and it could be anyone, and to all my so called ‘friends’ who use their sense of moral outrage to justify their fury I would say just keep your liberal left fingers crossed.

amanda goldman

Susan from Chicago. Thank you so much. When you find that you can’t get support from your own friends without caveats, it’s heartening to hear such fulsome support from someone who doesn’t know you

Valetta

It is so sad.

A. MacAulay

Please be careful that legitimate criticism of Israel, with the concommitant right to criticise right back, is not stifled with a broadband, PC verbot that any such criticism is necessarily anti-semitic. Also it should not be forgotten that Israels status as a US client has ensured a blending together of “yankee-go-home” rhetoric with real, “Elders of Zion”, anti-semiticism. This is a matter of acute dismay to persons like myself who feel allied to and respectful of both the US and Israel.

Nonetheless, we have to accept that the world has been held hostage by the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians for a very long time and with appalling consequences for practically everybody. The waste of the last 8 years by the Bush admin. and various Israeli political variations has led to Iran advancing it’s borders to the mediterranean! That sobering fact should should cause some self-criticism and reflection on the part of those who favour an Israeli carte blanche. This policy has failed, and failed badly, although to be fair no-one in their right minds will ever unillaterally end a cease fire agreament with Israel again. I have the definite feeling though that neither the US nor Israel have done enough, have used their great power and resources to bring about a peace, the nature of which is clear to everybody, namely 2 states and borders back, more or less, to 1967. Does anyone really doubt this?

Lastly, the new president of the US is clearly picking up where Clinton left off, and for conservatives, neo or not, that was the last time anything that looked like a serious effort took place. In the end nobody took Mr Bush or Ms. Rice seriously because they had simply made too many errors. Now let’s hope that the Palestinians will have purged their corrupt, macho troublemakers and will do better than the senile Arafat, who bore the main responsibility for the failure during the Clinton admin.

And finally, to the likes of L. Driever, you should assume that as Israel has been governed for a lot of it’s short existence by the Labour Party, then it will have the kind of social welfare system you so despise in Canada and Europe. It also has very strict gun control laws! In fact it’s closer to being European than American, I have heard, so are you really sure you want emigrate there? And to all others who wish to flee, please consider that all of you live in countries where the right to liberty and property are sacrosanct. Sometimes these rights have to be democratically fought for and there’s nothing new about that. So if you feel that you are being pushed, then push right back!

David Preiser

The best part about all this is that all those people saying Israel is the only problem, they’re engaged in ethnic cleansing, etc., don’t dare discuss what would happen if Israel opened all borders and stopped all military action against Hamas.

What will you say when Hamas – and your British neighbors – continue to attack Jews? You won’t have Israel to blame anymore: only yourselves. But you’ll probably all say the Jews had it coming anyway because of Israel’s past actions, right?

Without frank discussion about what Hamas – and the rest of them – will do once Israel opens all borders freely, removes the checkpoints, and stops all military activity, any whining about “it’s all Isreal’s fault” rings pretty damn hollow.

g

Your mechanism for Emailing this article are not working for me.I say this only after 3 tries. You might declare “Well that’s not many attempts.” Which brings me to another comment. This one is about Spectator’s Byzantine like maze of commands to finally enter the article of interest, which is this one.

g

Wy Can’t I Email this article to myself????

Alex Jones

I would remove Australia from the list of safe havens, Adsurd immigration policies have allowed a siseable build-up of a fifth column, not quite strong enough yet, but flexing muscles, Combined with the regulation silly left PC media,like most of Europe, the countdown is well underway. Alex in Oz

Rodney

Which part of the term “Holocaust Survivor” does Bill not understand? It has been in common usage for 60 years, so let’s help him overcome his flip incomprehension. He says: ‘Davis’s dinner companion was a “holocaust survivor”? Come again. That’s like being a car crash survivor by driving safely from point A to point B.’ If you drive safely from A to B you are indeed not a survivor, just a driver. However, if you have a crash and are still alive at the end of the journey, you are a crash survivor. If you were Jewish and trying to live your life from A to B but you ended up in a concentration camp, and were still alive at the end of the war, you are a Holocaust survivor. Among many similar organisations, there is in London the “Holocaust Survivors Centre.” I shouldn’t think they spent much time agonising over a name.

C Powell

I am not Jewish but am appalled at the pro-Hamas demonstrations and the attacks on Jewish buildings etc. So two weeks ago I went to my local synagogue and told the guards outside how angry I was at what was happening and that I wanted to express my solidarity with them. A small, very small gesture but it is important that those who are disgusted at what is happening in our country and do not want to lose our Jewish community or make them feel scared or unwanted do what they can to express how they feel.

Paul Worthington

The drafters of the Hammas Charter live in a world where it’s OK to keep slaves and trees and rocks speak. The Old Testament has some pretty weird stuff in it to.What we need to ensure in Europe and everywhere else is that the laws we have forbidding anybody to call for injury or death to anybody are strictly enforced. I do not need to take sides between Zionists and Islamists: I just want to know that the police and judiciary will do everything they can to arrest and lock up anyone inciting murder of anyone. Harshly. But leave any non-violent expressions of opinion free. Then we can all disagree in peace.

Anne Wotana Kaye

This was a very fair and accurate assessment of the attitudes of many in Great Britain today. Blind hatred and prejudice have always been with us, and will continue to be. It is in the nature of all people to have some who hate any who they perceive as different. What, however, concerns me is the psychologically disturbed UK Jews who turn their self-hatred upon Israel and yearn to hug the Hamas to their sick breasts. They were present in pre-World War II Germany, when they tried to be ‘more German than the German’ and dismissed the Nazis as a passing phenomenon.no moer disturbing than a summer rain shower! The Gerald Kauffmans and Miriam Margolyses are far more dangerous than some disgruntled Glasgow students, smashing Chinese take-away windows as they march through Kensington High Street.

David Short

g, yes, it is a very badly designed website, having to go thru all those entry points.

But here’s one tip. Once you get there, if you press Print this article, the whole piece comes up, you just press Cancel, then you can read it without having to go to the next page after ten seconds (it’s not that the website is designed for slow, remedial readers, the ‘management’ want you to read’ the ads, plus there’s just so much ‘noise’ on the entire page linking you to other parts of the mag, past and present, but hey, we get it for free).

Bill

Rodney, I am aware of the term “holocaust survivor” and what it means — although I see you’ve capitalised it; has it become a proper noun? In time, inevitable I guess — like the bending of history to make the holocaust (Holocaust) the central story of World War 2 and its accompanying laying on of guilt.Davis’s dinner companion was, by her own words, taken to England by her parents, who left their parents behind. I’m assuming the woman arrived in England as a small child. Where, exactly, was her “car crash”? What, exactly, did she survive?As to the ongoing and seemingly unstoppable madness in the Middle East, a plague on both their houses, I say.Israel was founded by terrorists and has been run by warmongers ever since, while the rest of the region is a lunatic asylum run by the inmates.As a sane person, I refuse to take sides.

DS

Amanda Goldman – I fully understand your predicament. It is, as if – over night – one draws a line and hides behind one’s self and wonders how the multi-cultural place we live in, has become such a lonely place. Stick to your ideals…always be proud!

Anne Wotana Kaye

BILLI find your comments ignorant of facts as they happened. I do, however, commend you on one important point. Unlike most of the Holocaust deniers, you refuse to take sides in the Middle East crisis. As you yourself claim, “I refuse as a sane person to take sides”. You may be ill-read and ignorant of the history of World War II, but you are sane in refusing to take sides in issues in which you are not able to judge. If only more, such as Galloway and Anthony Wedgewood Benn were as honest as you are.

Rodney

Bill: I agree there is an important distinction between someone who survived the experience of living in a concentration camp and someone who had left Germany in time to avoid that fate. Davis’s dinner guest was a child refugee rather than a survivor. He does not say whether her grandparents perished, but we do know that she and her parents escaped the “car crash.” What is important is the thrust of the article: that after all those years believing she was “inured”, in 2009 she feels it necessary to check “the suitcase under the bed.” I leave other respondents to comment on your alarming ignorance of historical facts in the Middle East and of Israel’s attempts to co-exist with its belligerent neighbours, who watched the new state being proclaimed by majority vote at the United Nations, called it “the catastrophe”, and went to war. With regard to peace agreements the exception was Sadat, flying from Egypt to Jerusalem in his spectacular (and successful) peace mission. Israelis have a saying: “The Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bill

Anna Wotana KayeWhen did I become a holocaust denier? The thing obviously happened. It was one of the most shameful episodes in human history . . . it’s impossible to think of anything worse carried out by a supposedly civilised people.But can you, and a couple of others, explain how Davis’s dinner companion was a “holocaust survivor”?She was Jewish. OK. She was born in Germany while the Nazis were still in power. OK. That’s about it, as far as I can see. I don’t think she was captured and incarcerated then escaped . . . sort of the minimum to be a “survivor”. The assumption I draw from the attitude of Davis and yourself is that anyone Jewish, born before May 1945, can claim to be a holocaust survivor . . . and no doubt will claim to be.And I’m “ill-read and ignorant on the history of World War II” am I?Good grief. It was all about the Jews, was it?And since the word “denier” has come up, there is no greater mass denial on the planet than that concerning the founding of Israel and the conduct of the state ever since.For one small episode, Google USS Liberty 1967 and see what comes up. Maybe it would be a useful exercise also for that Yank who was praising the place and thinking about emigrating now that Obama is president.

Bill

Rodney Try getting your history from more than one source. Do some cross-referencing. Keep an open mind — don’t just look for stuff that reinforces your own opinion. And dig a little deeper — you’d be surprised what turns up.A few others on here could try looking from another angle, too. Labelling people who disagree with you as “ignorant” is a particularly weak debating stance.Then again, perhaps you’d like there to be no debate.

Jabez Foodbotham

Rodney, you write to Bill:I leave other respondents to comment on your alarming ignorance of historical facts in the Middle East and of Israel’s attempts to co-exist with its belligerent neighbours.

May I point out a few historical facts.

The UN partition plan of 1947 allotted 56% of the Palestine Mandate for Jewish settlement and 43% for Palestinians despite the relative percentage populations being more than the inverse.

There was to be a small international zone including Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

In 1949 after the first Arab Israeli war the territory was divided into three parts.Israel now controlled 77% of the original Palestine Mandate and the remainder was divided between Jordan (the West Bank and East Jerusalem) and Egypt (the Gaza strip).

As a result of the 1967 six-day war Israel annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan heights (from Syria)and militarily occupied the West Bank and Gaza.

Today over 280,000 Israeli Jews live in the occupied West Bank and some 250,000 in the territory annexed along with East Jerusalem.

Any questions?

Celina

Edward, when I see the words KILL ALL JEWS scrawled on my local bus stops, it does not seem to say Zionists, it says Jews. I am old enough to remember the last time around as all my family were gassed.

Celina

Has anyone seen the Hamas Charter? Why? Is it too much like Mien Kampf?Here are a few highlights; “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. “

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours.”

“Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).

In a column in the weekly newspaper, Al Risalah, Sheik Yunus al-Astal, a Hamas legislator and imam presented a Koranic verse suggesting that “suffering by fire is the Jews’ destiny in this world and the next.” concluding, “therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews. Ref IHT 1 April 08

Al Astal again states in a sermon on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television, “Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam. “I believe that our children, or our grandchildren, will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them” He also declares that Rome will become, “”an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe.” Ref- Fox 14 Apr. 2008

Jak

Playing the anti-semitism card as usual!

Israeli Zionists can slaughter women and children in the Gazza Holocaust whilst arguing they are attacking a defenceless democractically elected Hamas -that’s fine. Anyone who criticises shoudn’t do so eh? You simply ignore this point and latch onto some minority irrelevant voices!

Shame on you!

john d

I suspect that those who nit-pick over the term Holocaust survivor will accept with equanimity and promote beyond any useful meaning the terms Palestinian refugee and Palestinian Holocaust. The real motivitating idea in their discourse is their hatred of Jews, in whatever size, shape or form, of whatever political belief or of whatever religious stream of Judaism. Let’s be unabashedly frank: we are talking about the open facilitating and promotion of antisemitism.

Proboscis

QUOTE JOHN D : ‘The real motivitating idea in their discourse is their hatred of Jews, in whatever size, shape or form, of whatever political belief or of whatever religious stream of Judaism. Let’s be unabashedly frank: we are talking about the open facilitating and promotion of antisemitism.’

SO, does that mean the Orthodox Jews who burned their Israeli passports in objection to the state of Israel are anti-semites?What about the mosquitoes that decide to bite someone who has glanced upon the Torah? Are they anti-semites too? Get a grip….

Rodney

What amazing rubbish from Proboscis. You need an Israeli passport to live in that country, and when a handful of Orthodox zealots burnt theirs it wasn’t an anti-semitic protest: it was a criticism of their government for running a state that was, in their extreme view, too secular – that is, not semitic enough. They soon got new ones. And since when did mosquitoes “decide” to bite people who look at the Torah? They bite everybody, they don’t sit around deciding whether it’s anti-semitic. Talk about getting a grip, we could do without barmy folk-tales. Anybody of any religion or none can visit any synagogue anywhere, look at the Torah and emerge unscathed (and possibly enlightened). Jesus read from it every day without getting insect bites. As for distortion of historical facts about the Middle East, Jabez Foodbotham and others should click on this for some real ones:

Ha ha look at all the idiots who think they know what’s going on in the middle east, even if you lived there and took in all the news there you still couldn’t describe the whole situation.

JC

The sooner we outlaw all religion the better. What a waste of human life and a waste of energy that could be used constructively.

All because of 2000 year old fairy tales.

Chaya

Kacy – it hurts me to read that you – as a Jew – have no idea what really went on in Gaza!

subee Blake

This is a sick now as it was then.We, as Christians can do what was not done then and stand up with and for the Jewish people. We can become there shield. We can speak up and speak out loud and clear and protect our Brothers and Sisters.